


Dream a Dream She Looks Like Madonna

by gilligankane



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-22
Updated: 2011-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:35:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Puck is the one who brings it up, coming up behind him out of nowhere, like they’re friends or something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream a Dream She Looks Like Madonna

Puck is the one who brings it up, coming up behind him out of nowhere, like they’re friends or something. Finn doesn’t really listen to what he says – he makes a point not to listen to anything Puck says so he doesn’t get angry and kick a chair or something. But he hears  _“Santana”_  and something like  _“she’s not here_  or  _in the janitor’s closest like she said she’d be”_  and something else like  _“way to show team spirit”_. He realizes Puck’s right. Everyone is here except for her.   
  
He shouldn’t care – they’re hardly friends except for the part where he’s a football player and she’s a cheerleader.  
  
But he does care. And that sucks a little, for him.  
  
He tunes out Artie’s hushed explanation of Brittany’s belief in Santa, because Santana isn’t here with them and Artie had made a specific announcement about it, so she should be here. He knows she’s not; he can always breathe a little easier and his muscles are always a little more relaxed whenever she’s not in the room. He’s not even panting or getting ready to run at the first sign of a bitch-out.  
  
She bitches him out. A lot. A ton more than Rachel does whenever he crosses some hand-line he’s not supposed to cross, even though she didn’t tell him he couldn’t cross it.  
  
Nevermind. A lot more than Rachel  _used to_.  
  
That’s Santana’s fault, just like the bruise she gave him in fifth grade, when she pinched him because he took two Jell-O cups and left nothing for her.   
  
Still. All of Glee is here, talking about Brittany while she hangs stockings on the other side of the room – and he wonders why she can’t hear them. They’re not really being  _quiet_ quiet, but maybe she’s really into stockings or something – and Santana isn’t here. Even he can tell something weird is going on between them, but they’re still best friends. Better friends than him and Puck are. Like, he would never go on a date and bring Puck with him, even before Puck slept with Quinn. And he definitely wouldn’t make out with Puck. Even if whoever they were with bought  _double_  dessert.  
  
So, since they’re best friends, wouldn’t Santana know more than Artie about this? He ducks like he’s going to ask Rachel, but she’s not standing next to him anymore, so he asks himself again and decides that  _yeah_ , Santana would know more.  
  
Except that she’s not here, which kind of confuses him.   
  
And disappoints him a little, to be honest.  
  
Santana is… He doesn’t really get her all the time. After what they did together, she had told him she wouldn’t tell. He knew she heard him tell Rachel nothing happened between them and she told him  _“whatever you say to the Dwarf is your own business”_  and smirked and called it a trump card. But then she had told anyway and it had been like that time the pipes in his basement burst: a flood. A flood of what, he isn’t sure. A flood of feelings, mostly. Anger, because that was a pretty uncool… promise-type thing to go back on. Confusion, because he wasn’t even really dating Rachel when it happened. More confusion, because Santana had been so weird right before it, putting on his tie for him and giving him these looks in the hall.  
  
He doesn’t  _mind_  the looks. Not really. It’s different from the way Rachel looks -  _looked_  at him. It’s more… heat. Spark. She might have told him she was doing him a favor, but he used to be friends with Puck. He knows heat when he sees it. And there was heat. The kind that had him giving her little waves when he thought Rachel wasn’t looking.  
  
He’s going to find Santana, for Brittany (and because he’s curious. About Santana).  
  
He waits until they’re all staring at Brittany again before he slips out of the room, pausing in the hallway. Finn isn’t even sure where Santana would be. This isn’t like trying to find out where Rachel is. That’s easier than trying to find the square root of four. When she’s sad, or angry, or feeling the way he does when the cable goes out and he misses a football game, Rachel is always in the auditorium, singing about it. But Santana wouldn’t sing about her problems. He doesn’t think she would, at least. She probably doesn’t even talk about them either. He’d bet a Choco Taco on it.  
  
She’s probably in the locker room, but Quinn tried to sneak him in there once, and he was so nervous, he bolted before they got to the door. Coach Sylvester scares him more than anything but she’s on some retreat, or stealing Christmas, or something, so Finn thinks maybe he could chance it.  
  
When he finds her, he thinks he’s kind of a genius.  
  
Santana is sitting on the far corner bench, filing her nails and tapping her foot to some song that sounds like the one she sang at Sectionals. He smiles because she was good and he didn’t tell her that, but he thought it.   
  
“What?”  
  
Finn frowns a little. “What?” he repeats. No insult. No name calling. It’s… disappointing. And makes him a little nervous.  
  
“Did I stutter, Finnocence?”  
  
He sighs in relief. That’s much better. “No. Hey.” He waves a little. “What’re you doing?”  
  
The nail filing noise stops. “Solving world peace. What are  _you_  doing here? This room is off limits to boys. And to you.”  
  
“We’re all in the choir room. And you’re not,” he adds. In case she forgot. Sometimes he forgets. He wouldn’t hold it against her.  
  
She starts filing her nails again. “How observant of you.”  
  
He sits down at the end of the same bench as her. At the very edge, because he’s sure she can’t pinch him or anything if he’s sitting this far away. He doesn’t think so, at least. “Well, why not? We’re trying to figure out a way to save Christmas.”  
  
Santana snorts. “Save Christmas.”  
  
“Yeah.” He nods excitedly. “See, Brittany still believes in Santa, but I figured you knew that already, and Artie is coming up with a plan so that no one ruins Christmas for her. That would really suck.”  
  
“All hail the bumper car,” she mutters.  
  
He thinks she’s talking about Artie. She’s got that Artie-scowl on her face. It kind of looks like Tina’s face, when she would be angry with Artie about something. “If you already know that Brittany still believes in Santa, why aren’t you helping us?”  
  
“I already did my job.”  
  
He frowns again. “Brittany isn’t a job. She’s our friend.”  
  
She narrows her eyes the way his mom does when he tracks mud into the house. “Well,  _I’m_  not your friend. So get out of my face, Andre the Giant.”  
  
Finn doesn’t move, even though he thinks maybe he should. He spins and leans against a locker behind him, twiddling his thumbs over each other, like he’s thumb wrestling himself. He always loses when he does, but he tries anyway. Since that night in the motel room, and especially since the wedding, he’s been trying to stay out of Santana’s way. Heat aside, he’s afraid of what was going to come out of her mouth and mostly because he knew that what he said in that motel room might not have been what she was looking for and Santana isn’t an easy person to say sorry to. He didn’t even need to look at her after he spoke to know that something was wrong. He could feel her whole body shift in bed. He could hear the way she spoke to him, tough and cold and hard.  
  
What he said might have hurt her and she wouldn’t ever say it, but she doesn’t need to, because he thinks he knows. He meant it, he did, but if someone had said what he did to him, he might be hurt too. Just a little. He figures maybe helping now can make up for it now. It’ll give him good karma, or something. He thinks. Maybe. Maybe it’ll just make him feel good inside for the first time in a while.  
  
“You could apologize,” he offers.  
  
She lifts one eyebrow slowly. It’s not as scary as when Quinn does it, but it’s scary enough. “Excuse me?”  
  
He shrugs. “If you did something wrong, apologize. If you didn’t, well… I dunno. Talk to her, or something. That’s what my mom always says I should do.”  
  
“Leave, Neanderthal.”  
  
Finn shakes his head, trying not to smile. Neanderthal isn’t a great insult. He’s been called worse. “She’s your best friend, Santana. And she needs you to help.”  
  
Santana does one of those fake laughs Quinn used to do. “She’s got her very own senior citizen to help her. It sounds like he’s got everything under control.”  
  
“I bet you’re better at it.”  
  
“Damn straight I’m better at it,” he hears her say under her breath.  
  
He slides a little closer to her, holding his breath. “Don’t do it for us. Do it for her.” He waits eagerly, head cocked to the side as he studies the way she kind of freezes. That might not be good, but he gets stuck on the way her neck strains in place. He kind of likes the way reminds him of when she finally … well, when she… He flushes and doesn’t notice her unfreeze.  
  
“Let’s get something straight, Mr. Potato Head. I don’t like you. I tried to do you a favor once upon a time and that’s that. I didn’t ask for your help, so get out of my face and get back to pining after your circus escapee girlfriend.” She’s holding the nail file like she’s going to stab him with it. He saw it happen in a movie once, where the guys were in prison and they filed down a toothbrush. It looked like it hurt. Santana could probably make it hurt more.  
  
“She’s not my girlfriend anymore,” he says, gritting his teeth. “But c’mon. Help her out.” He’s not sure why he keeps pushing it, because he’s sure this Brittany and Artie thing feels the same for her as the Puck and Quinn thing feels for him, but there’s something about Santana Lopez that always throws him off.  
  
She ignores him and starts packing her iHome and her bag up, zipping it closed so quickly that she could probably zip her finger right off. She has to go past him to get to the door. That could work for him. As she marches towards him, she ducks her shoulder just a little like she’s going to ram him if he tries to make a move for her. He can picture her on the field like that, taking down people left and right. He reaches out and snags her wrist, tugging her gently towards where he’s standing. A moth to the flame. Or a flame to the moth. Because he’s pretty sure she wouldn’t see him as the flame, even though he’s got  _heat_.  
  
He totally does, honest.  
  
He smiles at her, his thumb moving in circles around her wrist bone. He saw this movie one time with his mom – one of the 80’s movies he was raised on – about these two girls at a summer camp, each trying to lose their virginity before the other. There’s one character, he remembers, that is just like Santana – all badass and rough around the edges, but really soft when no one is looking.  
  
Finn remembers what the guy character said as his hand drifts up Santana’s arm, tracing the barely-there vein in the crook of her elbow. “You talk rough,” he says quietly. His hand slides across the curve of her shoulder and slips around the back of her neck. “But your skin is so soft.”  
  
He can spit game, or whatever Puck calls it. He could spit it better than Puck if he wanted to.  
  
“Hudson,” she says just as quietly, except it sounds like she’s warning him not to try anything.  
  
There’s something about Santana Lopez that always throws him off and it makes him feel like he could get away with this.   
  
He pulls her a little closer until she’s stepping on his toes. He smiles a little wider like he’s not afraid she’s going to gut him right here – he totally is, though. “Just shut up, Santana.” And he kisses her, just to make sure she listens.  
  
It tastes weird. After all they did together, they didn’t do this – Finn kissing Santana the way he kissed Quinn, all gently like she’s going to run away.   
  
He’s not sure where the burst of confidence comes from, really. The “meat surprise” he had for lunch tasted a little funny, but there probably wasn’t anything in it. Not anything that would make him do this, at least, but she’s pretty and soft and maybe this will make her smile and he can do something right today.  
  
It’s Christmas, after all. The holiday where everyone is nice to everyone – his weird Aunt Millicent even smiles at him.  
  
Santana growls and bunches his shirt in her hand, pulling him closer. “Don’t kiss me like I’m going to break.”  
  
Maybe she will break. She seems kind of breakable. She feels like a really expensive vase: handle with care and if he breaks it, he buys it. But she said not to kiss her like that so he doesn’t. She might be breakable, but she’s not Quinn and she probably doesn’t like him trying to be a gentleman. She probably doesn’t like fairytales, or think he’s Prince Charming like Rachel did.  
  
She bites down on his bottom lip but he doesn’t wince. She pushes him back against the locker, into the latch, but he doesn’t push back. He gets it: she wants control. That’s cool. He’s used to girls being in charge. Puck calls him a loser for letting it happen, but he thinks it makes him a good guy. And girls like Santana, it kind of feels like they need to be in charge.  
  
Finn should have done this sooner. Santana is a good kisser, even if she’s clawing his collarbone and biting her way into his mouth. It kind of feels good. Her tongue brushes against his and he gets that tight feeling in the pit of his stomach, the one that used to knot up whenever his hand would inch closer to Quinn’s chest. Now he pushes back until he feels her body sink and he knows it’s safe for him keep pushing down because there’s a bench there to catch her.   
  
“Sorry,” he murmurs when she grunts as she drops. Finn thinks about kneeling in front of her, because his back is starting to hurt from bending this way, but she’s kissing him harder and the knot is pulling tighter and he stops thinking. Her nails stop tearing the skin at his neck and start piercing his chest as they claw up under his shirt. He can hear himself breathing harder against her mouth, some sort of feeling welling up inside like a big bubble cutting off his airway and his knees feel like their cracking and she laughs.  
  
He pulls away, just enough to frown and yeah, she’s laughing at him. “Hey,” he says, trying not to whine.  
  
Santana smirks and presses her hand flat against where his science book says his heart is. “Excited much?”  
  
Horrified, Finn glances down at his jeans, but he isn’t sure what she’s talking about. He’s all… calm, down there.  
  
She laughs harder and he’s not pissed off or anything, but he’s confused. Santana pats his bare chest. “Here. It feels like your heart is going to beat right out into my hand.”  
  
“Oh,” he breathes out, feeling his face grow hot. “I’m… nervous Coach Sylvester’ll come and find me.”  
  
“Sure you are,” she coos, sliding her hands back out of his shirt. He misses the warmth he didn’t know was there and almost pulls her hand back. She has that glint in her eye, though, the one from before that screams  _”touch me and lose something important”_. So he doesn’t touch, because every one of his body parts is important. “Who do you think you are, anyway? Coming in here and kissing me like you’re allowed to.”  
  
The movie didn’t have this part in it. He  _was_  friends with Puck, though, and he picked up a few things: how not to cut his hair, how to throw a spiral, where to stash his porn magazines, and how to look like he knows what he’s doing.  
  
So he shrugs and smiles in a way he knows drove Rachel crazy, at least. “I’m Finn. And I can. I just did, didn’t I?”  
  
Santana pauses for a moment and stares him down. He think he sees the corner of her mouth twitch up a little, but then she stands up and it forces him back a step as she readjusts her ponytail. Though, he didn’t even really mess it up. He watches her work, tucking each strand into her left hand as she twirls the holder around with her right. It’s kind of like he’s watching her put battle armor on. He saw Gladiator. He knows that one piece goes on at a time and that each piece takes a minute to be fit perfect. She pulls her ponytail tighter and smoothes the bump on the top of her head, tugs down her uniform top and arranges the pleats of her skirt so that he can see the red of her spankies if she walks with enough sway in her step.  
  
He likes that she’s always the same. Because she always walks with enough sway in her step.  
  
“What are you still doing here?” she asks. He jumps a little, caught staring.  
  
“Oh,” he repeats. “Well, uh, I’m waiting. For you.” He scratches the back of his neck. “I think we’re going to see Santa at the mall.”  
  
Santana scoffs and it’s the final piece of metal armor. “ _That’s_  Wheels’ great plan? The mall Santa? Last year it was a Jewish guy who wished Brittany a happy Chanukah.” She looks at Finn over her shoulder. “What a  _brilliant_  plan.”  
  
She brushes past him and this time he lets her go, trailing after her. He checks the hallway twice before leaving the locker room, jogging a few steps to catch up to her. He settles at a pace half a step behind her. In the back of his head, Puck is calling him a pussy again, for letting her take charge, but Puck is pushed back to the farthest corner in his mind, because Santana doing that sway thing. She’s really good at it.  
  
He’s a free man now – yeah, he’s still in love with Rachel and a part of him feels like she’s his one great love, the kind that the good bands sing about, but he can’t be around her right now without it feeling like his heart hurts and his head pounds. He’s free, though, so he can look and he does. He sees her ponytail swish a little and knows she sees him and she’s probably smirking back at him.   
  
“Let’s go, Frankenteen,” she calls over her shoulder.  
  
He smiles back at her, rubbing at the small scratch on his collarbone. “Hey,” he says, catching up to her. “Want to help me decorate the tree later? I’m the only one tall enough to put the star on top, so…”  
  
She looks like she’s thinking about it. That’s good, because she’s not saying no. “I get to put the star on top.”  
  
It doesn’t sound like she’s asking. “Sure,” he promises. “I’ll put all the rest of the high stuff up.”  
  
“Whatever,” she says dismissively, but she’s still not saying no. And she even looks like if he tipped her head to the side, she’d be smiling at him. “Let’s just get this over with. Someone might see me at the mall with you losers.”  
  
He smirks at her, catching her by the elbow. “Did I tell you that we’re all gonna sit on his lap?”  
  
Santana stares at him, eyes a little wide and then she’s glaring and growling low in the back of her throat and Finn sees that Artie-face again. He almost feels bad for the kid, but he’s mostly amused and mostly distracted by the soft skin of Santana’s arm to try and make an effort to warn Artie.  
  
“You talk real rough,” he says quietly, smirking. She pulls out of his hold and saunters down the hall ahead of him, looking back once but not stopping for him to catch up. He watches her disappear around the corner into the choir room and shakes his head.  
  
Puck comes up behind him and frowns. “I still can’t believe you tapped that. And you’re still a loser.”  
  
A part of him really wants to punch Puck – the dude has taken two girls away from him, after all. But the rest of glee club comes out into the hallway before he can and she doesn’t even look at him. He smirks a little and wonders what would happen next, if this were that movie he saw. When it was over, the guy didn’t get the girl. She left summer camp and went home.  
  
But he had a fun time with her until the end, at least, until she went home with her best friend forgetting there were even boys in the first place. He had _heat_  until then.  
  
And someone still has to put the star at the top of the tree.


End file.
